To
understand Japanese culture requires reading between the lines. This is
Hugh
Mcpherson's challenge in Nakamura Reality, a beguiling blend of mystery, odyssey,
inconsolable loss and obsession.
Absenting
himself for a brief intimacy with a former girlfriend, Hugh leaves his
surfing-obsessed sons on an isolated California beach. When he returns, the
eleven-year-old twins have vanished. A ferocious riptide has swept Takumi and
Hitoshi out to sea, their bodies unrecovered.
Devastated by the loss, Hugh and his Japanese wife Setsuko divorce. Severing all ties to America, Setsuko returns to Japan to live with her father, Kazuki Ono, a prominent author of mind-bending novels.
After grieving for ten years and longing for Setsuko, Hugh swims out to sea to drown himself. As he sinks, his sons appear to him, holding the last letter that he had sent to their mother, begging her forgiveness.
Abandoning his suicide, Hugh swims back to shore. The incident awakens memories that throw doubt on the accepted version of his sons' deaths. His doubts are intensified when he learns that Kazuki Ono has come to California to finish a novel called Fingal's Cave, the tale of a brash American who marries a Japanese woman against the wishes of her father, a powerful businessman with ties to the Yakuza.
Provoked by his memories and obliquely revealing passages found in Kazuki's books, Hugh begins a Quixotic journey across the California landscape, encountering numerous characters of ill-will and cross-purpose, but who inexorably lead him toward a film-industry firm called Nakamura Reality, and a labyrinth that challenges him to separate reality from fiction to find his way out... and perhaps back to his sons.
Devastated by the loss, Hugh and his Japanese wife Setsuko divorce. Severing all ties to America, Setsuko returns to Japan to live with her father, Kazuki Ono, a prominent author of mind-bending novels.
After grieving for ten years and longing for Setsuko, Hugh swims out to sea to drown himself. As he sinks, his sons appear to him, holding the last letter that he had sent to their mother, begging her forgiveness.
Abandoning his suicide, Hugh swims back to shore. The incident awakens memories that throw doubt on the accepted version of his sons' deaths. His doubts are intensified when he learns that Kazuki Ono has come to California to finish a novel called Fingal's Cave, the tale of a brash American who marries a Japanese woman against the wishes of her father, a powerful businessman with ties to the Yakuza.
Provoked by his memories and obliquely revealing passages found in Kazuki's books, Hugh begins a Quixotic journey across the California landscape, encountering numerous characters of ill-will and cross-purpose, but who inexorably lead him toward a film-industry firm called Nakamura Reality, and a labyrinth that challenges him to separate reality from fiction to find his way out... and perhaps back to his sons.
Nakamura
Reality (Mystery)
By
Alex Austin
The
Permanent Press www.thepermanentpress.com
ISBN
9781579624095
$29.00
272
Pages
Rating
4-Stars
“Will Test The Reader’s
Imagination”
Leaving his sons
unattended on the beach, Hugh McPherson returns to find them missing, believed
to have been swept away while surfing in the ocean. The loss of his sons breaks
up his marriage with his Japanese wife, Setsuko. She returns to Japan, leaving
Hugh to suffer his loss alone. Ten years later he decides to join his sons,
swimming into the sea to die, but a vision of his two boys makes him see other
possibilities. But when chance presents itself Hugh searches out Setsuko’s
father who is visiting to finish his novel. Could his sons still be alive?
This was a strange
mystery novel, leaving the reader questioning reality as truth or fiction. What
we see as real may not be the truth. The author delves into the Japanese
thought process, as well as reading between the lines for deeper meanings. A
good read, but there were times I wasn’t sure I was following the story line,
and that posed a problem for me. It all works in the end, but expect some odd
roads to the final destination. Recommended to test the reader’s imagination.
Tom
Johnson
Author
of THE MAN IN THE BLACK FEDORA
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